Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday January 27, 2011 @04:35PM
from the things-have-been-rough-for-Wile-E dept.

suraj.sun writes "According to a Fox News report: 'Drug smugglers trying to get marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border apparently are trying a new approach — a medieval catapult, capable of launching 4.4 pounds of marijuana at a time. National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the International Border fence last Friday evening. The 3-yard tall catapult was found about 20 yards from the US border on a flatbed towed by a sports utility vehicle, according to a Mexican army officer with the 45th military zone in the border state of Sonora.'"

I can't get the stupid video to run, but if they are using an elastic spring, to spin a launching arm, then yes, definitely catapult.For those that don't know the difference, it's simple:A Catapult uses torsion to impart momentum to a swinging launch arm which flings the projectile.A Trebuchet uses a counterweight to do the same thing.And just because there are stupid reporters that can really get things wrong, a ballista or arbalest is a direct fire siege engine sized freaking crossbow! (Ok, there's actual

Incorrect, they can easily have the exact same firing characteristics. The difference is it's easier to build more powerful trebuchets than catapults, and they can often be readied faster as well if the designers planned for it.

The height of the "trajectory arc" is completely based on the release angle and force. The method used to impart moment to the swinging launch arm has no bearing on the trajectory. It could be a freaking hydraulic ram swinging that launch arm, so long as the release angle and force are the same, you get the exact same result.

One of these days someone, in the quest to trim federal spending, fight drugs, and patrol borders, is going to go a few steps beyond remotely controlled web cams.

Imagine if you will a parallel universe, where handling crime is a game. There the government sells "hunting" licenses to website operators that provide cameras and weapons remotely operated over the web by paying players. The war on whatever turns profitable?Not sure what happens to any captured drugs, maybe the government could auction those of

It has already happened - people were paying money for a "ride". Someone miscalculated a customer's weight and he landed a few dozen feet short of the safety net that was there to catch him. The owners of the catapult went to jail for manslaughter.

However, shooting invading foreigners while not funny...makes sense I think. We need to do something to protect our borders, hell it is one of the FEW enumerated powers the federal govt. is supposed to have and do per the Constitution.

I have no problem with immigrants who come over through legal channels. Like Dennis Miller once said....I don't care if you want to come over, just sign the fucking guest book on the way in..

No land mines. Not ever. They don't discriminate, they don't decide, and they don't go away if you change policy or the location of the border or no man's land. As much as I also hate your sharpshooter idea, the sharpshooter in question is at least responsible for his/her actions, and can make a decision based on observable facts, such as "Are these people likely to be drug runners/terrorists/criminals, or are they just people stupidly trying to run the border? Do they have children with them? Should I shoo

You need to LEGALIZE DRUGS in the US NOW. The groups that "import" mexicans and latinamericans to the US are the very same that have caused oh just about 30,000 dead here in México, and they manage their logistics precisely by coke trafficking in the US.

If you guys were to legalize drugs Mexico would too and we would have a legal export that would be enough to feed everyone here.

I have no problem with immigrants who come over through legal channels. Like Dennis Miller once said....I don't care if you want to come over, just sign the fucking guest book on the way in.

The waiting list for a relative of a legal US resident from Mexico to immigrate to the US is ten years long. For many other categories of immigrant it's essentially impossible. Forgive me if I find claims like yours to be more than a little disingenuous.

While definitions have varied over time, in modern usage the distinction is: a catapult uses tension, while a trebuchet uses a counterweight. Catapults have used quite a few forms of elastic tension to store energy over the centuries: twisting rope was just the most common.

You're almost right. The most common spring wasn't twisted rope, it was twisted rawhide. Rope loses its elasticity almost immediately, rawhide doesn't.

(Scientific American, ca.1971 iirc)

The trebuchet we used in SCA combat (I was baron of Stormhold at the time) was a traction trebuchet; instead of a counterweight, it had four large ropes that people hauled down on, on command. Ours had a 6 metre (18') throwing arm. It was fairly well researched, and could throw a couple of kilograms worth of softball

What's important is the counter measure. Here is something for the US border patrol to bear in mind:

When faced with enemy trebuchets, cavalry work best due to their high speed and good damage. A small group of Knights make short work of a group of trebuchets. Cavalry archers also work well, especially the Mongol Mangudai due to its bonus damage vs. siege units. Infantry and foot archers are also acceptable but are less desirable due to their lack of speed; this weakness allows the user to spot them early and respond to the situation by unpacking the trebuchets and/or retaliating with an army of his/her own.

Obviously, the high speed of cavalry, with a base move of at least 7", does help to close the difference. But the main reason knights are more useful against trebuchets is because they have 25mmx50mm bases, so fewer of them are touched by the small blast template. Infantry have either 20mm or 25mm square bases, resulting in considerably more (19 or 13, respectively) being hit.

Flying cavalry or other units of flyers are ideal, though. With their high speed (marching 20") they can get across the field in only

Your attempt at being pedantic fails. A trebuchet is just a specific type of catapult. The device is in fact a catapult.

You are being insufficiently discriminating, sorry. They weren't classed as such, and medieval distinctions between catapults and trebuchets were quite distinct. You had catapults (also called "Onagers", or "rocking donkeys"), ballistae (God's very own crossbow, generally with two distinct arms, from which we derive the term "ballistics") and the various forms of trebuchets, the largest of which could throw a boulder the size of a small cottage. You would no more call them all "catapults" then you would

Catapults preceded medieval times, and we're in modern times, so your appeal to middle English as a language authority fails.

The term 'catapult' is often used as a generic label for all throwing machines. In modern times it describes any system that launches an object from a platform. Military historians and reference works are not in agreement when the term 'catapult' is used to label a specifically configured medieval non-gunpowder weapon.

I mean surely i'm not the only engineer who's joked that all they really need to do is catapult and parachute to get over the border, with no need for a parachute if they're launching hard projectiles. I mean the range on old catapults and trebuchets was quite well, and could be scaled as a simple matter of physics.

So I suppose next we might find a tunnel that is one mile down and 40 miles under the border to breach the "castle walls" of the united states?

or an air canon shooting small packages onto the roof of a friendly warehouse on the US side...

or autonomous boats/submarines...

I saw an MTV documentary one time where they showed how kayaks and sailboats would carry packages of drugs underwater attached to a weighted rope. If the authorities approach, just cut the line and let it sink.

I think if I were a drug kingpin I'd be paying lots of money to some poor graduate students to investigate modifying some nativ

The Newfoundland booze smugglers would toss their cargo overboard in wooden crates weighted with rock salt when they got raided. As the salt dissolved the crates would float to the surface where fishermen would just "happen" to be casting nets nearby. They got quite good at judging how long it took for x-many kilos of salt to dissolve.

Some of the Columbian narco gangs actually have used RC cars, and by that I mean the sort that is a real car with a RC steering mechanism. Granted their rare and mostly for bombings, but it does happen. Or at least it has happened.

Perhaps the next technology they will adopt will be underground pneumatic tubes like they have at banks, hospitals etc. e.g. a massive underground length of PVC pipe, using compressed air to shoot drug packages to the other side.

As Penn and Teller pointed out on their show Bullshit!, the border "wall" that conservatives keep on talking about building would be completely ineffective. A reasonably enterprising illegal immigrant could breach or bypass said wall in approximately 2 minutes (either climbing over, digging under, or busting a hole in the middle), and given that they've likely traveled for days just to get to the border, the extra 2 minutes aren't going to stop them. Heck, even the Berlin Wall didn't stop people trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin - people got past it with balloons, tunneling, and crashing border stations among other methods.

On the upside, I view those as proof that human ingenuity can beat oppression.

Heck, even the Berlin Wall didn't stop people trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin - people got past it with balloons, tunneling, and crashing border stations among other methods.

It was not the Berlin Wall that stopped them. It merely slowed them down so the bullets could stop them. The point of the Berlin Wall was not to be an infallible method of keeping people in, but just a to make it incredibly dangerous, time consuming, and generally resource intensive effort to bypass it.

My idea to protect the border is quite, quite, simple:

Snipers - Everybody dies from the smallest, to the largest, from the young to the old. If we can find you in our sights... you die.

When we go hiking in the Coronado National Forest, it's staggering the number of Border Patrol officers/vehicles/activity we see along 92 between Bisbee and Sierra Vista.

I don't know how you could get away with anything on that stretch of the border, but given the close proximity of Naco, MX and Naco, AZ, maybe just getting over the fence is all that matters, since the fence is pretty much the width of the border there.

Normally I'm pro-legalization, but I'm much more pro-catapult. So if anti-drug legislation can bring us the catapults of our dreams, then may it is the answer. Then again, we could legalize and then just require all distribution to be done via catapult. It's a win/win.

I think I agree here.... even more so with revelations that it was a trebuchet.

Hmmm you know, it is a siege weapon. Actually, I think they should be charged with waging war on the United States. Why? Because that way they could go down in History as the most recent use of a trebuchet in a battle.

And that... that would almost be worth the time.

I, for one, welcome the invasion of our trebuchet weilding enemies, and tell them to bring it on! We should meet them on the field of battle... and... twist up a doobe

Yes but, we can totally win the drug war. All we have to do is respond in Kind. We have much better ammo to load into our drug trebuches! We lob over a few bales of the sticky icky from Humbolt county, Vermont, or even some of that canadian shit, and I garauntee, the battle will be over quickly...even quicker if we slip some papers in.

I always wondered why the cartels haven't invested in UAVs. It must be pretty simple now days to build a GPS guided device with enough payload to make the more expensive drugs worthwhile to ship

Might work for cocaine / heroin but marijuana is pretty bulky. You'd want a UAV the size of a DC-3. And it really isn't 'easy' to build large UAVs - even ones with just, say, 10 kg payloads. Easy is a semisubmersible [wikipedia.org]. Interestingly, even though they have capacities of several tons, they appear to be used more for high value cocaine that plain old pot.

Cargo containers and semi trailers are much more efficient, that's how most drugs have entered the US ever since the Reagan bAdministration packed Customs with their cronies. There are several reasons why to this day only five percent of cargo containers entering the US are inspected, even though ports like Hong Kong and Dubai can inspect 100 percent, and the chance of accidentally uncovering someone's benefactor's shipment is one of them. Operations like this, the tunnels, the mules and the sailboats are

I always wondered why the cartels haven't invested in UAVs. It must be pretty simple now days to build a GPS guided device with enough payload to make the more expensive drugs worthwhile to ship

Especially because many of these cartels have cash and valuables on hand to rival the GDP of smaller second and third world countries. Hire an engineer and use some off the shelf components. GPS is cheap now.

A yard is a perfectly cromunlent extension to the Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight system (the One True Sytem of measurement). While a "link" (or millifurlong) is the preferred unit for formal surveying and land measuement, a "yard" (or 1/220th of a furlong) is fine for casual use.

Man, there is so much unprotected border with Canada they don't need anything crazy to cross. They can just pack it onto ATV's and drive it across at night.

I grew up in Maine and we used to joke that getting drugs across the border was the easy part. The only problem is that once you get into Maine it's still hundreds of miles to get the drugs to anybody that wants it and isn't already growing their own.